Human Guinea Pigs Organize and Win

by Dave Onion

[This article appeared in defenestrator(Philadelphia's anarchist newspaper) and the PhillyIMC website in April 2003. Another account of the same job action by Robert P. Helms appeared in The Industrial Worker of January/February 2003, and is also reproduced on this website. -- The Editor.]

The drug study is familiar to many Philly anarchist activists. Often with too much going on to be able to work regular jobs, some of us find ourselves choosing the alternative exploitation of leasing our bodies to huge pharmaceutical companies as human guinea pigs for monetary compensation. Early December, right after the start of a study to gain the multinational drug company Merck FDA approval for a yet-to-be-released anxiety medication, 20-odd subjects of the study got together in the lounge of Jefferson Hospital's Clinical Pharmacology Unit and complained angrily about the nature of the study we'd just started. Though it initially seemed to pay near average ($3300), the study was much more intense than any of us had expected. For one, it stretched out over Christmas and New Years (during which time we were allowed no alcohol or coffee) with the first period ending immediately before Christmas making most guinea pigs' Christmas preparations especially difficult. Our single day off every four days was near worthless free time considering we would spend the day scrambling to catch up on our daily lives and then not even be allowed to hit the bar afterwards. On top of this, our "PK days" every four days were grueling, with blood draws nearly all day. Also the pay, once we'd calculated our hourly wage equivalent, was a measly $6 an hour. Further vexation came from Merck. As one of the largest and richest corporations on the planet (raking in over $8 billion in profits in 2000), Merck was cutting costs in the unit to the point of trying to scale back on $5 meal tickets given to guinea pigs after a screening (usually after fasting from the day before). The study was made up, for the most part, of seasoned veterans in the study world, including three anarchist activists, though most of us knew each other from past studies. After some discussion, during which our feelings of getting screwed proved mutual, Bob Helms, Philly's local anarchist historian (also in the study) drafted up a letter to Merck demanding an additional $1500 for the study. The letter cited our pay, the intensity of the study and reminded Merck we were aware of the going conditions and pay rates for other studies going on. The one guinea pig who wouldn't sign on later enthusiastically asked for the letter back after some subjects suggested to him the possibility of appropriating his unearned scab pay on the way home from the bank. Now everyone was on board. The letter was sent off to Merck via the unit's head nurse with a verbal message that a good number of us were seriously considering not returning for the second leg of the study if our demands weren't met, in effect putting hundreds of thousands of Merck money on the line. In the meantime, despite the relative misery of consistently terrible food, TV over-saturation, bruised arms from failed subcutaneous vein searches, the study became territory for unusually interesting interactions, partly inspired by the unusual conditions of guinea pig work place class struggle. A good amount of dialogue took on a very political character. Represented in the study were blacks, whites, Moslem, anarchist, Christian, queer, a number of let's just say "extreme heteros," even a belligerent right wing capitalist (with a weakness for civil liberties). With CNN and the insane president looming constantly on the screen, the seemingly inevitable war against Iraqis became a constant theme of discussion, with near unanimous agreement that the boy king was off his rocker. At one point frustrated with a near total abstention of imperialist fervor in the study, our capitalist friend (incidentally very enthusiastic about our demands to Merck) left the room screaming "Is there not one fucking American in this study?" Another brief moment of inspiration came while watching In the Name of the Father, a film on the struggle of a Irish man framed as an IRA combatant. Mostly taking place in prison with a theme of struggle for justice and prison conditions, the film was a constant reminder of our own situation. Life in a drug study is strangely reminiscent of life locked up. The aesthetics, the boredom, the covert exchange of small (in our case, food) items, the people you meet ... (though food at CFCF [a city jail–- Ed.] is without a doubt better than that at Jefferson). Given the nurses' un-prisonlike treatment of us, our voluntary status and that we were getting paid for this, we tactfully refrained from a "unit riot." It was some time before we heard back from Merck. As a fair number of us were seriously considering walking out for more profitable or simply less grueling activity, we wanted an answer before the end of the first period. As this date approached, guinea pigs became increasingly restless and we started talking about ways to step up the pressure. One suggestion was to ingest notes reading "more money" which the nurses would be obliged to fish out of our shit. But many of the nurses, already working long hours and with their own beefs with Merck (having to retrieve half digested pills from our shit for instance) were on our side. And for the most part we mutually recognized each others' conditions. Some were starting to feel the head nurses were stalling or simply hadn't even passed on our note. Finally, just a couple days before the end of the first period we were called into the lounge and the announcement was made that Merck agreed our study deserved better pay and would add an extra $800 to our checks. Needless to say, we were jubilant. Not quite the $1500 we'd asked for, but most of us expected less if anything at all.